MMMiii!

I wrote this while waiting at SSS for the ID Picture Capture thingie.

I learned today that in government offices, people are equal. You’re not a minimum wager, you’re not a yuppie. You’re just any other citizen doing what you need to do.

i learned today to be thankful of what i have. An amount that you take for granted is something very important to someone else.

i learned today that pregnant women have something like an affinity with each other. They tend to want to talk about their pregnancy and stuff.

i learned today that you have to check on your salary deductions because apparently it’s common in this country for the employers not remitting your contributions.

i learned of a place that they call a hospital where pregnant women go to for their deliveries and you could share a bed with up to 3 people.

i learned that just because there is wifi doesn’t mean there’s internet. This was something that i really forgot and got excited about because of extreme boredom.

i learned that factory workers are like the machines they control. They are practically the machines.

i learned today that the SSS IDs are now sent through the mail and it won’t (or shouldn’t) take two to twenty years anymore.

i learned today that i really should keep all my payslips. I really should look for that one payslip that i misplaced.

i learned that no matter how hard you try to look nice on government taken pictures, it won’t ever be possible.

i learned that the best way to kill time in a long queue (5 hours and counting as i write this) is either to chat with complete strangers or eavesdrop on other …People’s conversations.

i learned that the maximum message length for my phone is 1600 characters.

i learned that i should believe government officials sometimes. The question is who to believe and when to believe.

i learned that it’s bad to count your chicks before the eggs hatch. Or in this case, count the minutes before you actually see or know where you are in the queue.

i learned what my salary deductions are actually all about and that you really do have government benefits.

Anyways, this seatmate or linemate who I never really asked for the name, she was actually the first who approached me. She badly needed to go to the restroom and asked me to save her seat, so okay. When she got back, actually, I still had my mp3 player on, and with my in-ear earphones, of course I wouldn’t hear anything else. But she started talking to me again when she came back and I sort of got annoyed because I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

But soon enough, I found myself talking WITH her and we were kind of sharing stories about our lives. It even came to a point that she asked for some advise regarding her younger brother who is planning to work at a call center and stop studying for the meantime. The brother is also taking Education… She was asking what kind of call center job would make the most money.

I told her that the type with sales jobs would probably earn a lot of money since for every sale you would also get a commission, however I also told her that there are other jobs that would allow her brother to do part time and at the same time earn money. There are a lot of online english teaching jobs for Koreans that are around and the pay is good enough. That way, her brother could still continue studying while working.

We talked about a lot of other stuff. I got to know more about her as well. She’s 28, 5 months pregnant, and working in a factory. She always applies for factory jobs but most of the time she doesn’t get it because of the height issue. She’s only like 4′10″. But she works hard…

Around noon, I was already getting hungry so I asked her to save my seat and I went to KFC to get some food. I kind of found her inspiring because she was running after P1500 worth of contributions over 6 months so that she could get a maternity loan… and that’s just my monthly transportation allowance.

I got her some food from KFC too, and forced her to take it since she also ate like ages ago and it wouldn’t be good for the baby. We talked more and more and more. Until another pregnant woman came along and they talked about babies and pregnancies.

I was able to finish with the ID thingie at 2:30pm like the guy from earlier predicted, the one who told that we could go home and just go back tomorrow. Soo… 8-2:30 is good enough to process the government ID?

But in any case… it was an insipiring and tiring day.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!